What Meta's targeting changes mean for trades agencies
Five years ago a Facebook ads agency earned its fee by knowing which interest categories, age bands and lookalike percentages produced cheap trade leads. Much of that knowledge is now obsolete. Meta has removed swathes of detailed targeting options, pushed advertisers towards its own Advantage+ audience tools, and lost a chunk of tracking signal to Apple's privacy changes. This piece argues that the shift has quietly changed what a trade should be paying an agency for.
What has changed, in plain terms
Three things. First, detailed targeting has been cut back repeatedly: categories Meta considered sensitive went in 2022, and a further round of interest and behaviour options was retired in early 2024. An agency can no longer stack 'homeowners' with 'recently moved' and 'interested in garden design' and call it a strategy, because several of those options no longer exist.
Second, Advantage+ audience became the default. You give Meta a starting suggestion and it expands beyond it when it predicts better results. In practice, for a local trade, the targeting is now 'people in this radius, let the algorithm work out who', and Meta's own guidance leans towards broad audiences.
Third, Apple's App Tracking Transparency in 2021 reduced the data Meta receives from iPhone users once they leave the app. Conversion tracking on your website is less complete than it was, so the platform optimises on noisier signals and reports fewer results than actually happen.
Why this hurts the old agency model
The traditional pitch was audience expertise: we know who to show your ad to. When the platform decides that for you, the pitch collapses. Two agencies setting up the same campaign in the same postcode radius with Advantage+ on will reach broadly similar people. The settings are no longer the differentiator.
What is left is the creative, the offer, the landing experience and the follow-up. Those are harder to do well and harder to show in a sales deck, which is why many agency websites still talk about 'laser targeting' as if it were 2019. Treat that language as a sign the site has not been updated, not necessarily that the agency has not.
| Then | Now | Agency skill that matters |
|---|---|---|
| Stacked interest targeting | Broad with Advantage+ expansion | Writing ads that self-select the right homeowner |
| Tight lookalike percentages | Algorithm-driven audience discovery | Feeding the algorithm quality conversion data |
| Pixel-based conversion optimisation | Partial signal after ATT; Conversions API recommended | Technical setup of server-side tracking and CRM feedback |
| Settings tested weekly | Creative tested weekly | Production pipeline for new footage and hooks |
| Cheap clicks as proof | Booked jobs as proof | Lead qualification and follow-up systems |
Creative is now the targeting
When Meta chooses the audience, the ad itself does the filtering. A video of a resin driveway being laid in a named town, with the installer talking, is seen by the algorithm to attract engagement from people who care about driveways in that town. It then shows the ad to more people like them. The creative is doing the job the interest list used to do.
This raises the value of agencies that take production seriously and lowers the value of those that recycle stock images. Grow My Trade lists photography and videography. Home Improvement Growth sells Meta video ads specifically. Home Improvements Digital Marketing talks about authority video. LeadFly publishes a price for short-form video. Whether or not those particular firms execute well, they have at least noticed where the work has moved. The full argument is in creative production: in-house or agency.
Feedback data is the other half
If the algorithm optimises on the signals it receives, the quality of those signals decides the quality of the leads. An account that only tells Meta 'form submitted' will be optimised for form submissions, including the junk ones. An account that feeds back 'lead qualified' or 'job booked' through the Conversions API or offline events teaches the algorithm what a good lead looks like.
This is technical work and it needs the client's cooperation, because only the trade knows which leads booked. It is also why agencies with CRMs, such as We Build Trades, Scale Through Us and Get Work with its job-value dashboard, are structurally better placed than those without. Our guide to lead quality versus lead volume covers what to feed back and how.
The special ad category question
A related change trades sometimes trip over: ads about housing, employment or credit fall into Meta's special ad categories with heavily restricted targeting. Most trade services are not caught, but a firm that strays into property-related claims, or advertises for installers, can find a campaign limited without understanding why. An agency should know where the line sits and keep your ads on the right side of it.
What to ask an agency now
The last question is the sharpest. An agency that has adapted will have a clear answer. One that has not will talk about audiences.
- How many new ads do you produce per month, and from what footage?
- Is the Conversions API set up, and do you feed booked-job data back to Meta?
- What is your view on Advantage+ audience versus manual targeting for a trade like mine, and why?
- How do you measure results given that reported conversions undercount after Apple's changes?
- Show me a campaign you have run since 2024 and explain what you changed from how you would have run it in 2021.
The upside for trades
There is good news in this. The algorithm has flattened the advantage that big agencies held through targeting expertise. A tradesperson with a phone, a good offer and a disciplined follow-up routine can run a competitive local campaign in a way that was harder five years ago, which is the premise of our self-run Meta ads playbook.
It also means the questions in our agency scoring method are the right ones. Proof, creative, ownership, reporting. The audience settings were never the point; the platform has simply made that obvious.
Frequently asked questions
Can agencies still target homeowners on Facebook?
Not with the precision they once could. Many detailed interest and behaviour options have been removed and Advantage+ audience expands beyond any manual selection. Location radius and creative now do most of the filtering.
What is Advantage+ audience?
Meta's default audience setting, which treats your targeting as a suggestion and expands to other users it predicts will convert. For most local trades it is now the practical default.
Why does my Meta report show fewer leads than I actually received?
Apple's App Tracking Transparency reduced the signal Meta receives from iPhone users, so platform-reported conversions undercount. Feeding your own booking data back through the Conversions API helps.